Italy – A documentary tells the forgotten story of Italians at Trauenbrietzen

Images and words to preserve memories. The Department of Communication and Economics (DCE) and the Mediateca of Unimore (the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) hosted a meeting, organised by the “Amici di passato e presente” [friends of the past and the present] association. It was for students, faculty members and all those interested in recalling the forgotten story of a massacre of Italians working in Trauenbrietzen in Germany at the end of World War II. The meeting was to be held on Tuesday January 31 at the Mediateca ([media library] of the Interdepartmental University Library, Viale Allegri 9, in Reggio Emilia. It starts at 5 p.m. and will include the Italo-German documentary film “Nella sabbia di Brandeburg” [On the Sand of Brandeburg] by Katalin Ambrus, Nina Mair and Matthias Neumann, and a debate will follow.  Professor Andrea Rapini, Unimore faculty member and organiser of the event, said: “The documentary film tells the stories and recalls the massacre of more than 100 Italian workers which occurred at the end of World War II at Treuenbrietzen. The incident had been repressed for a long time and has now been reconstructed in this cross-media, interactive, documentary film divided into 24 episodes. Eighteen are biographical and an account of the events, narrated from a modern outlook. Six episodes provide historical details. It uses animated images created by Italian illustrator Cosimo Miorelli. The soundtrack has been composed by Stefano Fornasaro and Andrea Blasetig.”